“Are you not afraid I will leak Konoha’s secrets?” Itachi asked with narrowed eyes after hearing what I said.
“It would certainly sting a bit if you did but not nearly as much as you assume. You must know that Danzo is long dead by now, confronted and killed for his crimes. Much of the leverage you have held over the village vanished with his and the thirds death since only they knew of it. You might stir up some internal tension but that will be solved fairly easily since my sensei obviously couldn’t have known about any of it since she had all but cut ties to the village for close to a decade now.” I said with a shrug.
His face hardened at this as he no doubt realized that I was right and he didn’t have anything he could use to hold me off from annihilating Sasuke the moment he came to attack Konoha.
“Is there nothing that could convince you not to kill him?” he asked while his body tensed in preparation to act if he didn’t like my answer.
“I already told you, if in the future he comes to seek the destruction of the village he will die. Do with that what you will. Also apologies in advance, this is going to hurt.” I said before stabbing my hand through his chest right next to his heart before he could even react.
Oh I had no doubt that he could have reacted if he had his mangekyou active but he hadn’t so I moved faster than his instincts could even process the threat I held and gravely injured him. Why didn’t I outright kill him you may ask. The answer to that was that I had a sneaking suspicion that he possessed the other eye of Shisui Uchiha.-
The one Danzo had had been clearly the weaker of the two in terms of brainwashing power as the genjutsu was broken easily. This meant that the other eye which was unaccounted for should possess the REALLY dangerous version that was impossible to detect or remove. It was not a stretch then to believe that Shisui would entrust it to Itachi given their close relationship. If this was true then Itachi could use the eye on Sasuke to fix the whole issue with him coming after the village.-
Rather than dealing with a rampant Eternal mangekyou sharingan user later I may end up with one as an ally instead if Itachi pulled it off. That said I needed to make it look convincing so the wound I gave Itachi was nearly fatal if he didn’t retreat and treat it. This was something the man himself seemed to pick up on as he flickered away leaving a heavy blood trail behind him. With that done I checked on Kakashi and almost felt pity for Deidara. His entire fighting style which revolved around his explosions was pretty much crippled by Kakashi’s usage of lightning release.-
It was ridiculously easy to tell that the blonde had almost entirely foregone all other aspects of shinobi combat in favor of absolute specialization into his “art”. I’m not saying that that made him weak or anything as it was quite the opposite so long as a single thing didn’t get put against him, lightning release. Explosion release was a mix of earth and lightning chakras with a heavy majority in earth chakra so lightning release from an external source ruined this Kekkai genkai’s balance and caused the chakra to be rendered harmless.-
For against anyone not using lightning release Deidara would be a very dangerous opponent easily S rank. Against someone who only used lightning release though he was pitifully weak. His taijutsu and other elemental jutsu usage was barely at the jonin level and thus not really all that threatening for an S rank Kakashi. The fight was downright pathetic and no doubt humiliating for Deidara as he was getting manhandled easily by Kakashi and only barely managing to stay alive thanks to his ability to make flying constructs. I thought about intervening myself but didn’t get a chance as Deidara chose to swallow his rage and flee on his flying clay bird.-
Well okay to be fair even while flying I could easily take Deidara out but I really didn’t feel like it and chose to let him go. Kakashi also clearly was of a similar thought as he just watched the blonde flee and turned to leave once he was sure Deidara wasn’t pulling a trick.
“Did you kill Itachi already!?” Kakashi asked in surprise when he saw me waiting for him.
I shook my head “He fled once I gave him a nearly mortal wound, missed his heart by maybe a millimeter. He still might die if he doesn’t get treatment for the wound soon.” I said honestly.
He nodded “Makes sense, though I’m surprised you let him go. with your capabilities I imagine finishing the job would have been easy for you.” he said with an odd look.
“I let him escape for the same reason you let your opponent do so, it was too much of a hassle to keep them.” I said lying slightly but not so much that it was easily seen through.
“Desperate shinobi can do dangerous things. I wasn’t willing to see what he might try to pull if truly backed into a corner.” he said seriously and I nodded.
“He would have likely used his self destruction to try and take you with him. It’s one of the most dangerous aspects of fighting someone with Explosion release after all. With that kinjutsu as well there is no telling how extreme the explosion he could create might be.” I said seriously.
“Thankfully this isn’t a kill mission but a rescue one so I didn’t have to push him into a true corner.” he said with a genuinely relieved look.
Kakashi knew that I had recreated Explosion release since he had been one of the people to read my entire limit collection and thus he knew if even I was uncomfortable at the idea of Deidara’s self destruction it would be bad news. We made our way towards the others who should have rescued Gaara by this point but what we found was not ideal at all. Gaara was dying, too much of the tailed beast had been forcefully ripped out of him by the time the extraction had been interrupted. His vitality was slowly slipping from his body and Chiyo was trying her hardest to keep him alive and repair the damage done by the extraction but was failing.